My brother laughs hysterically. “Dad really said that?”
“Yep.”
Oliver parks outside Pizza Hut. Other than clubbing, his other favorite thing is eating poorly. With an arm around my shoulders, he leads me inside. The pizza is great, of course, but his real reason for coming here is the mini arcade, which has ancient games, like the original Donkey Kong. He orders us a large cheese pizza, then ushers me into the arcade to play while we wait. Two little boys are playing air hockey, but otherwise, we have the place to ourselves. Oliver commandeers Contra, and I decide on Super Mario.
We talk as our fingers work the buttons. “How’s your Yale application coming? Need me to read your draft?”
“It’s going fine.”
“You don’t sound all that excited.”
I make Mario jump over a hole in the ground. “It’s just the admissions director got me thinking about what I want to do with my life, and I don’t really know.”
Oliver’s fingers frantically tap away on the controls. “That’s pretty typical, Tee.”
“I don’t even know if I want to go to Yale. All I know is I’ve been working my ass off for years.”
“And it’s going to pay off.”
During this entire conversation, Oliver doesn’t look up from Contra. I love him, but he’s just like Dad. Ambitious. Focused. Eyes always on the prize.
But should you play a game if you don’t know what the prize is? Life is not like The Price Is Right, where they show you three doors and tell you to pick one. The prize might be a new car, but sometimes it’s a month’s supply of paper towels. What if I pick the wrong door by going to Yale, majoring in business, getting a job at the family firm, and end up living a miserable life because I did what was expected of me?
I’m proud of my family, and I want to help continue the business Grandpa started, but shouldn’t I listen to my heart too? I was born with an insane amount of privilege, and I know I’m lucky, but with that privilege comes responsibility to do important things in my life.
I jab a button, and Mario bumps a brick box with his head. It bursts, and a coin pops out.
“I’m worried about you,” Oliver says. “You’re questioning Yale? That’s where you’ve always wanted to go. And then you had all those pills… Is something else driving this? Are you depressed?”
I accidentally run into a Koopa who shrinks me back to Little Mario. “No, I’m not depressed.”
“This is all just so weird.”
“Oll, I already talk to a counselor four days a week. Can’t we just eat and hang out?”
We go back to tapping on our games until the pizza and a pitcher of Coke come. We take a break to eat, and I’m hopeful the pizza will keep him from talking, but he chatters on with his mouth full.
“I still can’t believe Ezra took a leave of absence from Cornell,” Oliver says, ripping off a bite of crust. “I’m worried he’s going to drop out.”
“I hope he goes back too.”
“So wait. You want Ezra to go back to school, but you’re weirded out about applying to Yale? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Ezra knows what he wants to do—”
“Yeah, he wants to work in construction. He doesn’t have to go to Cornell for that.”
“He wants more…”
Oliver scrunches his forehead. “What else does he want?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
He takes another bite and chews. “Would y’all stay together if he went back to Cornell?”
I don’t hesitate. “Definitely.”
“But you broke up with Ben because you didn’t want to do long distance. And I know you loved him.”
I rush to cover up my lie about Ben. “Ezra’s different.”
I hate that about lies, how you constantly have to stay on your toes. Telling the truth is so much better. It allows you freedom.
Oliver sets down his second slice. “Ezra’s my best friend. I know he’s serious about you, and I don’t want you hurting him, okay?”
“I won’t. I care about him so much.”
Great. Not only do people think I take drugs, they doubt my character. The lie I told to cover my breakup with Ben doesn’t really reflect how I feel. If I loved a person, I would make it work, no matter the distance. If Ben hadn’t betrayed me and one of us had moved away, I would’ve worked hard to keep our relationship intact.
Now my brother thinks I’ll dump his friend. Probably thinks I’m still taking pills. Soon, his opinion of me will be in the toilet. I need to get us back to normal.
“How about some two-player Mario?” I challenge him.
He wads up his napkin. “Oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong.”
? ? ?
Ezra and I have settled into a routine. We meet up every morning before he goes to work and I go to school, and whenever we can, we meet up after soccer practice in the evenings. He started wanting to play again himself, so he joined an intramural rec league in town. His team is made up of mostly Spanish-speaking guys who barely speak any English but rock at soccer. Ezra’s been holding his own in goal. I love going to cheer him on, especially when they play shirts versus skins and Ezra is on skins.
Even with soccer, and even though he has me, I can tell he’s restless. He may love working on the construction crew, but I know it’s not enough for him. He’s too smart, too ambitious. He has dreams he’s too scared to reach out and take.
Before school one day, I meet up with him for our usual coffee. But I got there a few minutes earlier than usual and caught him doodling and writing in a sketchpad with a pencil. He hates writing and reading, so it shocks me to find him like this.
I pass him the One coffee on me! coupon to “pay” for my cup. He slips the coupon into his front jeans pocket, raising his eyebrows at me. At some point, I’ll steal that coupon out of his pocket so he’ll buy me another coffee tomorrow. He loves it when I put my hands all over him looking for it. Find the coupon has become a game for us.
“What were you working on?”
He shuts the sketchbook. “It’s nothing.”
I snatch his white paper bag. “If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna eat all your doughnuts.”
He grabs at the bag, trying to steal it back from me, but I hold it behind our booth.
“You’re evil, Tease. Hey, I’m gonna start calling you that. Evil Tease.”
“Stop trying to distract me. What were you writing?”
“I wasn’t writing anything.”
“You sending a love note to another girl?”
He lifts an eyebrow mischievously. “I think after last Friday night, we’ve established I don’t want anybody else.”
My face blazes at the memory. Even though we said we weren’t going to fool around because my brother was in the house, we ended up kissing for what felt like hours, and his shorts and my pajamas ended up on the rug. Suddenly, I need to fan myself.
“Stop trying to distract me,” I say again, more sternly this time.
He pushes the sketchpad over to me. I open it. He’s been drawing a house.
“Is this a Colonial?”
“Yes.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He smiles. “They’re my favorite design.”
“Did you draw this?”
He shrugs a little, then nods.